30 July 2009

In Scottish football there are two clubs, Celtic and Rangers, and then everybody else. Celtic have won the Scottish Cup 34 times, Rangers 33 times, and everybody else 56 times combined. The Renfrewshire Cup, played annually for soccer supremacy of Renfrewshire, Scotland, is a micro version of Scottish football. As of July 28, 2009, when St Mirren of Paisley beat Greenock Morton 2-1, the cup has gone to the Saints 51 times, the Ton 51 times, and everybody else combined only 15 times.

27 July 2009

This month Canada became the seventh country to have two of its nationals in space at once. The Soviets were the first in August 1962 when Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 flew simultaneously. The Soviet Union then put three cosmonauts together in Voskhod 1 in October 1964. The Americans, still playing catch-up in the space race at that point, launched Grisson and Young aboard Gemini 3 in March 1965. The Soviets began lofting representatives of its eastern bloc allies in 1978, beginning with Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Bulgaria, but never two at once. Once its space shuttle program got going the US began to free up seats for its friends, beginning with West Germany in 1983 and Canada in 1984. By then the Soviets had taken up Hungarian, Vietnamese, Cuban, Mongolian, Romanian, Indian and French cosmonauts. The Americans launched their own Frenchman in 1985. West Germany became the third country to have two of its nationals in orbit at once when Reinhard Furrer and Ernst Messerschmid flew aboard Challenger in October 1985. Another pair of Germans, this time from the reunited country, flew in Columbia in April 1993. Italy came in fourth when a pair of Italians flew aboard Columbia in February 1996. France's strategy of making nice with both Russia and America paid off in July 1999 when it became the fifth country to have two its people in space, one aboard the Mir space station and the other on Columbia, though they did not meet to shake hands. In October 2006 China launched Shenzhou 6 with two astronauts on board, becoming the sixth country, but only the third to use its own spacecraft. And this year Canada came in seventh, taking a page from France's book. Robert Thirsk boarded the International Space Station from a Soyuz ferry in May, and Julie Payette from Endeavour last week. Thirsk should also meet Canadian space tourist Guy Laliberté in October, if things go on schedule.